ABSTRACT
Many books on business writing start by offering advice on the most appropriate business style. For example, the book which describes itself as ‘the most widely used writing course in the English-speaking world’ starts by emphasizing that good business writers should write so that readers receive a clear and accurate impression of the writer’s message. It then moves on immediately to five principles of clear writing, where principle 1 is ‘to prefer clear, familiar words’ (Joseph, 1998, p. 12). We comment on principles like this in the next chapter, but we think that all writers need to start by taking a step back to reflect on their approach to writing and the way they organize information. Our starting point is represented in the following quotation from well-known British researchers and consultants in communication: ‘the real effort in writing is in the thinking required for planning and preparing, in the judgement required for organising and laying out, and in the continual need for sensitivity in the encoding of ideas in words and phrases’ (Turk and Kirkman, 1989, p. 126). Turk and Kirkman here identify three critical steps which we reflect in this book: planning; organizing the material; and choosing the best way to express yourself. They also put the initial emphasis on planning and preparing. So how do you plan and prepare to write? Is there a best way of going about this process? For example, in this chapter we emphasize the importance of clear objectives. A document can be beautifully written, but if it does not have clear objectives and does not satisfy the needs or expectations of its readers, then it is not an effective business document.
